Thugs of Hindostan trailer: Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan battle it out in this CGI fest. Watch video | Bollywood - Hindustan Times
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Thugs of Hindostan trailer: Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan battle it out in this CGI fest. Watch video

Hindustan Times | ByNivedita Mishra
Sep 27, 2018 03:16 PM IST

Thugs of Hindostan trailer is here and the Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh film promises to be an entertaining yet engaging retelling of a chapter from the modern Indian history.

Thugs of Hindostan trailer was shared by Aamir Khan on Thursday, after a week of motion posters teasing the looks of film’s principal cast — Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif, Amitabh Bachchan and Fatima Sana Shaikh. The trailer takes us back to 1795 AD; British East India Company is the ascendant power but giving them stiff challenge is a band of thugs.

Thugs of Hindostan trailer sees Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan on opposite sides of quest for independence.
Thugs of Hindostan trailer sees Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan on opposite sides of quest for independence.

Riding the waters on sailing ships, armed with swords, bow and arrows and cannons (mounted on ships), the spunky lot take on the more technologically advanced British. In the countryside, the British are taking Indians as prisoners in hordes, gunning down people who are armed with little more than flame torches and lathis and burning entire villages.

 

Into this milieu, enter Azaad and his deputy Zafira, determined to fight the outsider to the finish. But wait! What could have been a straight military face-off gets a twist. In comes a con man, Aamir’s Firangi Mallah, an unscrupulous man, with no morals whatsoever. He comes with a reputation and the company officials are keen on winning this battle with the thugs, through fair or foul means, and are willing to hire this crook, if he gets them the prized catch -- Azaad.

Mallah is game (he’ll do anything for money?). We then see him landing in Azaad’s den (we sense Azaad’s strength lies in the waters) and take him on. Before any major clash can take place, we see Mallah placating Azaad, saying: “Ab humein Azaad ke saath rehna hai. Azaad banna hai.” Minutes later, we see Mallah driving a hard bargain with the British.

Aamir Khan returns as the unscrupulous Firangi Mallah in Thugs of Hindostan.
Aamir Khan returns as the unscrupulous Firangi Mallah in Thugs of Hindostan.

The over 3.5-minute trailer introduces us to all the principle characters and their motives. The most noticeable being Firangi Mallah, who begins by two-timing both sides of the divide but towards the end of the trailer, seems to switch sides. Katrina makes a fleeting appearance in the clip.

The Thugs of Hindostan team has kept fans and viewers invested, in a big way, in the film ever since the first poster was unveiled on September 18. Since then, the makers of the film have been giving us a peek into the world of the Thugs — Amitabh Bachchan plays Khudabaksh, described as ‘one & only master of Thugs’. Next up was Fatima Sana Shaikh’s character called Zafira whose description says that “she rises from the embers” and is known to be an ace with bow and arrow. Then, we were introduced to the villain of the piece, Englishman named John Clive. In fact, Aamir, while sharing the same poster, gave us a bit of a history lesson when he mentioned that this Clive should not be confused with the other one, Robert Clive, from the annals of modern Indian history.

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The makers then shared a picture of Katrina Kaif’s character — the seductive dancer-entertainer who goes by the name Suraiyya. The last motion poster was, of course, that of the hero Aamir, who plays a rakish never-do-good called Firangi Mallah. Sharing his poster, Aamir had written: “And this is me Firangi Mallah. You will not find anyone kinder than me on this planet. Truth is my second name and loyalty is in my work. I swear on my grandmother.” Aamir’s Firangi is a looks like a comic book character with his weird outfit, wearing a green jacket and a top hat and riding a donkey.

 

 

The look and feel of the motion posters gives us the context and overall climate in which the story is set — we realise the story is set in turbulent times when British is the dominant power in India; its dominion spreads from the foothills of the Hindukush to dust of Bengal and from the borders with Tibet till the shores of Indian ocean. However, giving them lot of pain are many rebellions, wars, battles and mutinies across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent.

The movie is based on a novel called Confessions of a Thug by Philip Meadows Taylor and is set in the 1830s, many years before the Revolt of 1857 (variously called India’s First War of Independence, Sepoy Mutiny and one that marked the formal end of the Mughal era in India). Among the many who opposed the British were thugs (a word that has gained currency in English from the Hindi word ‘thug’ meaning a con). From the posters, we get a sense that each of the men and women, did not live by the rule book but nonetheless took on a bigger bully and fought them in water as well on land.

Thugs of Hindostan releases November 8 to coincide with the Diwali weekend. It will also be dubbed in Tamil and Telugu.

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    I have been working as a journalist and content producer and have 27 years of experience acorss various domains such as entertainment, feature writing, lifestyle, news and now affiliate writing.

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